Follow the Leaders: Faber-Castell e-motion Fountain Pen (M nib)

Hmmm…buttery smooth nib. That phrase will get my attention EVERY time.

I did a little more stalking, and watched this review. (Same pen, just in the Croco style.) More confirmation of an ultra-smooth nib.

ARE you buttery smooth?

With both Dan and Stephen on board, how could I go wrong? So I shopped around, but waited until I had some Christmas money to make my purchase. After Christmas, I spent a few days re-reading and re-watching the reviews (as is my MO), then pondered the eternal fountain pen question…which size nib? As I mulled this over, I chatted with a pen friend on Twitter and casually mentioned that the e-motion was going to be my next pen purchase. Then another tweet popped up, this one from Dan Smith (one of the FPGeeks himself!). Turns out he had an e-motion for sale, brand new, medium nib, great price. Sold! Talk about good timing.

The pen arrived on Saturday, and looked like this…

Anticipation

then this…

Getting there

then, finally, this…

Revealed

I filled the pen with my go-to black ink…Montblanc’s Mystery Black, then wrote and wrote and wrote. Mostly nonsense, but still.

The Faber-Castell is exactly as I hoped it would be…heavy, well-balanced, great looking, and yes…very smooth. The nib is stainless steel and lovely. Of the pens I own, I’d rank it as my 3rd smoothest, JUST behind the Sensa Meridian and the Tiger Stripey by Ken Cavers. High praise, indeed.

The black resin body is laser-etched with a parquet pattern that looks a little like braided leather. The pen is HEFTY, but not at all cumbersome, unless you post the cap. The chrome cap is quite substantial and adds just a bit too much weight to the back end. It’s not impossible to write with the cap posted (and I do, sometimes), but I generally prefer to use the pen unposted.

Laser-etched parquet

The chrome cap, grip, and end cap SHINE. I love the shine, but because I’m a little OCD, I feel the need to polish it up with a microfiber cloth to get rid of the inevitable fingerprints. (My husband’s like this with cars. I’m like this with pens. Two peas. One pod.)

Chrome cap and clip

The spring loaded clip is wonderfully curved (a bit like a ski jump, as Stephen notes in his video). I haven’t carried it in a pocket, so I can’t comment on how well the clip keeps the pen in place, but it FEELS like it’d do the job just fine.

Though I lean toward fine and extra-fine nibs, I’m glad that this medium nibbed pen serendipitously came my way. It’s a joy to use, to look at, and to polish. The line is bold and, as has been stated (and stated) super smooth.

e-motion notes

I had a feeling that Dan and Stephen wouldn’t steer me wrong, and at least as far as the Faber-Castell e-motion fountain pen goes, I was right to follow the leaders.

You’re right…it IS a wet line, but I haven’t had issues with drying time with my current ink. And because I researched it to death (as I’m prone to do), I knew what to expect. I use finer pens most of the time, but my medium nibbed/bolder line pens are definitely growing on me!

The official answer from Faber-Castell is as follows: The nibs are NOT interchangeable. BASIC, Ambition and emotion are all different nibs and will not fit if changed. The sizes are available in Fine, Medium and Broad for each of them, however the design is completely different for each of them.

I wondered if the same was possible between the e-motion and the basic. My interest is because I have an e-motion with F nib (it was a gift) and wanted to change it to an M nib. It occurred to me that the cheapest option was to buy a BASIC M and change the nibs. Bad luck.

I have this one in the wood version. And I had to stop using it :(. The threads inside the cap are from plastic, but the threads on the pen are from metal. This resulted in breaking of the threads in the cap, changing the caps three times, stopping using this pen as it was expensive to buy new cap every few months :((.

The pen is great, the nib is also great and I loved writing with it :(